


She Breaks Just Like a Little Girl

by hauntedd



Category: Code Name: Sailor V, Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-26
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-22 11:41:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/609443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hauntedd/pseuds/hauntedd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one seems to remember that she’s <i>thirteen</i> and making all of this up as she goes along.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Breaks Just Like a Little Girl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [cureelliott](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cureelliott/gifts).



She remembers life _before_ when her worries were simple and commonplace—school, boys, volleyball. All the things that a thirteen-year-old girl should care about, but back then she’d been looking for magic—a little fame and infamy to color her days.

Minako should have listened to her parents when they warned that you should be careful what you wish for _because you might just get it_.

In her defense, she hadn’t wished to fight crime in a short skirt with only a talking cat and an ambiguous boss to help her. No, Minako wanted to be a famous volleyball player, or track-star. Maybe go to the Olympics or at least the Asian Games. Or maybe an idol—she wasn’t sure, really, but the possibilities were endless. 

Fate, however, had a different plan.

~*~

The first time Minako is forced into her new life as Sailor V it’s all so sudden that she can’t process what’s happening until it’s too late. The power is a rush and the gold lights and red and blue uniform seem exciting as they take hold. She’s never been one to run from a challenge and maybe, just maybe, the soldier of love and beauty, protector of Earth is her most exciting challenge yet.

Minako likes excitement, or so she thinks, and this feels entirely unnatural, but she’s willing to play along for now, when the words _crescent beam_ are just words and the compact is a fun way to achieve the perfect makeover in no time at all.

Artemis tries to warn her, talk to her about duty, but he trains her with video games and speaks of castles floating above Venus. He calls her a _woman among women_ and it all feels so easy and glamorous.

But eventually, the cuts and scrapes come. The near misses and dances with death become commonplace and Minako knows instinctually that no video game will help her in this battle against the Dark Agency. And she’s not sure what, exactly, she should do and in these moments she feels like a little girl lost running around in costumes and hopped up on fairytales.

It’s too late to run, now, so she stumbles forward awkwardly because _Earth needs her_ even if Minako’s not sure she’s capable of saving it when she can’t save her from herself.

Of course, she can’t tell Artemis this, he would just give her some empty compliments and ply her with more stories of a land that she doesn’t remember and cannot escape.

~*~

Eventually, Hikaru grows distant. 

It’s inevitable, really, as the enemies pile up and the excuses wear thin, but it pains Minako more than she’d like to admit and it cuts her more deeply than the strained relationships that have developed between her and her parents. 

Sailor V is all consuming and nothing at all like what the reports make her out to be. Minako smiles through it all because that’s what she’s _supposed _to do, even though her life, her **real** life, is falling apart all around her.__

__Volleyball practices become second to youma and petty crime because that’s what Artemis and Boss demand. The world is more important than her quality of life, apparently, and no one seems to remember that she’s _thirteen_ and making all of this up as she goes along. _ _

__~*~_ _

__Once, before her bravado was reserved solely for fighting aliens and criminals, Minako had declared adamantly that she never cried. She was made of harder stuff, or so she thought, and was never a sniveling girl. But now, when she’s alone, truly alone, Minako cries all the time._ _

__She’s also started to fawn over boys even more than she had—each crush more dramatic than the last. She’s supposed to be the soldier of beauty, so it fits whoever she’s destined to be, or so she thinks._ _

__Of course Minako feels like she’s losing herself in the process._ _

__However, Sailor V doesn’t cry and she’s solely focused on her mission as she shines brightly behind her glasses and disguises. She’s the perfect picture of righteousness as crescent beam after crescent beam fall from her hands._ _

__Artemis doesn’t notice the changes within her and the walls she’s erected are so high now that no one else would dare to say anything at all._ _

__~*~_ _

__In the end, Ace is Danburite and Minako—no, Sailor V—chooses justice over love. The irony isn’t lost on her that she’s the soldier of love and yet she’s destined, it seems, to go without._ _

__Artemis tells her stories of other soldiers, that she’s not going to be alone for much longer, and a greater purpose. Minako nods at all the right times and asks the correct questions, but in the end what she feels isn’t relief at not being alone, but pity for four more lives that will be secondary to duty._ _

__But she soldiers on and forward, watching from the sidelines as they come into their powers, never objecting, _because that would be pointless_ , but silently mourning the loss of their innocence._ _

__Moon. Mercury. Mars. Jupiter. All so different, and yet, she recognizes the familiar fumbles and brushes with disaster as they come into themselves and their destiny._ _

__And finally, when Artemis hands her a new pen, she takes it—knowing that it’s finally time to adopt a new role. She’s a _leader_ now and maybe, just maybe, she can save them all from their pasts so they can have a chance at a future._ _

**Author's Note:**

> I was really inspired by your prompt--I was into sailor moon like forever ago & it was fun to revisit sailor v all these years later :) I hope you like this, even if it felt like it wanted to be told from Minako's POV instead of Artemis'.


End file.
